Sunday's Child

By Joyce Bright

Fictional Novel, Literary Fiction This description may be from another edition of this product.

• Format: Paperback
• Language: English
• ISBN: 0941483126
• ISBN13: 9780941483124
• Release Date: January 1988
• Publisher: Naiad Pr
• Length: 224 Pages
• Weight: 0.65 lbs.
• Dimensions: 0.6" x 5.5" x 8.4"

Customer Reviews

Loved it! Keep it on your "re-read this regularly" shelf.

Kate Ashbourne, a talented runner who had given up on running years ago due to a badly-timed injury, is encouraged by her closest friend, Angie Mandelli, to get into some heavy training and preparation and try to qualify for the Olympic Trials. Angie is a lesbian, with a "family of choice" made up of woman-loving women. As the story opens, she's dating a shallow woman who, according to Angie's friend Terry, is a "thrill seeker" -- not a real lesbian. She's got to figure out her priorities, and get in touch with what she's really looking for in a relationship.Some of the best pieces of the book are the random conversations between Angie and her buddy Terry. Sexual exclusivity, lesbian bars, youth, religion -- they hit all the good topics, and it's funny as heck. Kate has always identified as heterosexual (hmm...), lives with her brother, is pretty seriously seeing a guy, and is perpetually harassed by her parents -- a weak father who molested her when she was young, and a steam-rolling mother who knew about the abuse but denied it, and who reigns over her husband and terrorizes her children. The scenes in which Kate deals with her parents - particularly toward the end of the book - are gripping, and I found myself doing the old "Noo, don't give in to that BS!" and "Yeah, that's right, you tell him where to go!" routine. In short, it sucks you right into the real-life drama.In dealing with destructive relationships, societal expectations, their own desires/needs/goals, and the very up-close-and-personal threat of a rapist in their own neighborhood, Angie and Kate are shining examples of what I'd say are the major "themes" of this book -- women's determination, friendship, strength, and support for one another. You get a great feeling of warm lesbian family-community -- very uplifting. :)Quick excerpt:[Context: Kate is asking Angie to join a health club with her, specifically for weight training.]"No." Angie paused, and then continued, "Weights? ******! You ARE a jock!""You're a lesbian." Maybe she could appeal to Angie's feminism and sense of esthetics, Kate reasoned. Angie did work on the rape-crisis hot-line, and she had heard Angie talk about self-defense classes they held down at the rape crisis center. Surely lifting weights was politically correct."Katie." Angie stopped running again, totally thrown off balance by this latest argument. "I'm not ready to come out to the entire neighborhood before breakfast," she whispered. "Keep your voice down.""Sorry." Kate hung her head, confused. Since when was Angie shy about being a lesbian?"Besides," Angie continued to whisper, "whatever do you think we do in bed? Honey, I don't know what misshapen stereotype you're carrying around in that brilliant head of yours, but my bed is not a weight bench. 'Bench press your way to lesbian fulfillment' is not something I've ever seen on a poster at the Gay Parade...."